The Coldest Winter Ever

  “I don’t even deal in those small sums of money. The way you were talking I was thinking you was about to negotiate a major deal. You talking about you working a corner hand to hand competing with the other sellers who been out there and got a flow going with they customers. You talking about sparking a beef over turf just based on them niggas being down with the new and you being a reminder of the old.”

  “Well then, you put me on. I’ll be down with your crew. Train me and all that good shit. Put me on.” Will looked like he was thinking about it as we pulled into the drive-in.

  “You know there’s a lot of ways to make money Winter, not only one way.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  Will smiled. I shot him a fuck-you-I-ain’t-no-two-dollar-hoe look. “I ain’t tricking, working no dirty alleys and shit like that.”

  “I would never put Santiaga’s daughter on the hoe-stroll. You too good for that kind of work.”

  “So what you offering?”

  “Just stick with me, Winter. You want some popcorn?”

  “No,” I said, frustrated.

  Will came back with everything size large. Large drink, large popcorn, large nachos. As I sat there watching him crunching on his popcorn, I wondered, What is Will really into? Who is he? Did he have any value or purpose to me or was I just wasting my time? He obviously didn’t want to do business with me. He must’ve only wanted the pussy. I tried to take a good look at him again, but it was too dark. I could only get a glimpse when a blue or yellow or red light flickered off the screen into the car. He looked alright as far as I could remember. But he didn’t give me that uncontrollable feeling that I felt when I was in the car with Midnight. He had all the right stuff and I’d give him some pussy to get it from him, but only if I could be sure I was gonna get exactly what I wanted. I seen plenty a niggas who will flash their jewels, cars, and gear, run through pussy and leave the girl with rug burns on her back and nothing else. I needed cash, training, a solid team, and a real man to look out for me in every way. So I started to fuck with his head. “Let me ask you something, Will.”

  “What?”

  “You supposed to be a great businessman right?”

  “No doubt,” he said confidently.

  “You watch how your money moves, look out for people tryna pinch the stash, don’t want to make moves with no small-timer with small money.”

  “Yeah? What you tryna get at,” he asked slightly aggravated.

  “So why does a man who works so hard for the dough drop three Gs on a bitch like Natalie for a Chanel suit.”

  “Damn, that suit really got you heated, huh,” he joked.

  “No seriously, it’s no secret that Natalie fucks around with anybody. You supposed to be a man who watches the company he keeps and look who you end up in box seats with.”

  Will was aggravated. “Look, you want to get raw with me, I’ma get raw with you. I’ma talk to you like you one of my boys, now. Natalie sucks my dick like no other hoe ever sucked my dick.”

  “Yeah, but you could’ve got your dick sucked on 42nd Street.”

  “No, not like that. There’s an art to sucking a dick. Natalie got that shit locked down. She gets the whole dick in her mouth and still finds room for my nuts. When I bust in her mouth, she swallows like it’s pancake syrup. Hell, she earned that three-thousand-dollar suit.” He laughed. “One of my boys from Fort Greene was just saying Natalie’s fucking around with this other kid he know around your way. I told my boy if she’s sucking his dick like she be sucking mine, I know why he’s risking his life fucking one of my hoes. But as long as she’s sucking my dick like she does she can get whatever she wants.”

  “So what did you want my number for?”

  “Just ’cause a chick can suck your dick good don’t mean she can be your girl. I figured that shit out.”

  “Oh, so you saying that—”

  “I’m saying that you Santiaga’s daughter, you’re beautiful, young, top-of-the-line. A nigga don’t have to teach you how to act. You naturally classy, now that’s different.”

  “Oh, so you tryna make yourself look good by making Winter Santiaga your girl. But then you’re gonna let Natalie suck your dick on the side while you blessing her with clothes ’n cash.”

  “First off, I didn’t say nothing about giving her cash. I give her things she wants. And if you asking me to cut her off you must be saying you gonna do me better than she do, so I wouldn’t have no reason to fuck with her again.” Will rubbed his balls with his left hand until his thick erect dick was sticking out of his pants.

  “Oh, now you actually got the nerve to ask me to suck your dick?”

  Will started laughing. “Listen girl, you just don’t know. Some niggas smoke weed, some niggas hooked on cane, some on the pussy. My pleasure is having my joint done right. If I ain’t gotta girl the minute I want her, I make one of them crackhead niggas suck my joint. Man them niggas is so turned out on that crack that they’ll get on their knees and suck my dick just like a bitch for a hit of the pipe.” He laughed. “Men got stronger jaws. That shit feels even better.”

  The movie screen turned black. Will’s lips were moving. He was talking but I couldn’t hear no more sound. That was it. If there was a feeling in my body for Will, it was dead. I told myself if I could calm myself down, maybe I could still have Will as a possible business partner somewhere down the road. The bottom line was, I was sitting next to a man who thought it was okay to let another man suck his dick. Somehow Will figured that only the crackhead is the homosexual. Will saw himself as “all man,” the powerful dealer. Just to keep it real with y’all, I can’t take no man seriously who I gotta guess about sexually. I can’t be seduced or excited by questionable masculinity. I need to know that my man is rugged and rough to the bone. I would never have to worry about Midnight saying or doing this. If a crackhead even suggested oral sex as a trade-off for cash, Midnight would’ve put a bullet in his head. What Santiaga might have done in that situation is unmentionable.

  I bobbed and weaved like a boxer for the rest of our date. I knew I had to play my cards carefully not to burn a potential bridge. At the same time I refused to end the night with my face buried in Will’s lap.

  Tomorrow I would consult with my father about my financial options. My anger toward him was slowly wearing down. I felt backed into a corner. The truth of the matter was I needed some good advice from Daddy, a man who had always loved me. The pain of it all was trying to talk through a thick glass or having to speak through a small vent or having to talk on some dirty old phone surveilled by the police. There would be no kind of privacy. I would have to pick over each and every word. I hated the idea of not being able to touch my father, having to watch him move in calculated steps because his hands and feet were chained together. And what would I say to him about my mother? What had Daddy already heard? Who would he blame? Wasn’t my mother’s condition his fault? Wasn’t it the incident with Dulce that pushed Momma over the edge in the first place? How much did Dulce cost Daddy? Did she have money hidden that belonged to Santiaga? Tomorrow I would get answers from him, to all of my questions. I crawled into bed and noticed my cousin Bianca was back and fast asleep in our small room.

  “I saw you get out of his car. When I catch you bitch, your ass is grass.” That was my 5 A.M. wake-up call from Natalie. She couldn’t rattle me, though. She’s so petite that I didn’t even think of her as a fighter. I thought to myself shit definitely had changed a whole lot. ’Cause there was a time when she wouldn’t even dream of threatening me, much less following through and putting her hands on me. She was the gossip operator in our neighborhood. Therefore, she knew my situation. She knew my family wasn’t tight like it used to be. The only worry I had now was when and how Natalie would attack. Would she jump out of a dark corner with a razor on the steps where the light is always broken? Or would she pay one of the local crackheads to do some ill shit to me? I’d have to stay alert.

  At six, seven, eight, nine, and ten o??
?clock the phone rang. Each time, the person calling hung up. I knew it was Natalie. By 8 A.M. my aunt was screaming about the crank phone calls. She paced the hallways talking about there are three grown women living in this apartment and whenever this kind of shit happens it means somebody is sleeping with somebody else’s man! I didn’t answer. Bianca looked at me and rolled her eyes as if to agree that her mother was bugging and to go back to sleep.

  Out of frustration I got up and headed for the shower. The steam surrounded my naked body and heated water drops slid down my breasts. It’s time to leave here, I said to myself. So I asked myself, and go where? I came up with no response, but I knew I needed to leave fast. Where is Midnight now? I wondered. I imagined him in a villa in Spain sipping a tequila sunrise. Tequila, was that a Spanish or Mexican drink? Oh, what was the difference? Or maybe Midnight was disguised somewhere in a shack in Alabama. Nah, he was too smooth for that. He was sitting in the back room of an elegant club in Chicago— one that he owned. He dressed up every night, blending in with the darkness but still wearing sunglasses. He raked in mad dough, but ran the real operation out the back room of the club. He was saving up enough dough to come and rescue me from this bullshit. He’d take me to the nightclub, bring me on the stage where the spotlight would fall on me. I’d be wearing a silver designer dress that was so top-notch it wouldn’t even have a name. A dress especially prepared for me. No other dress like it in the world. I’d have on silver shoes imported from Italy and handcrafted stockings with designer garter belts. Midnight would say, “Ladies ’n gentlemen, I present to you my wife, the new hostess of my club Winter Storm.” The crowd would cheer and I would graciously accept my new role as the top hostess/madame in town. In the shower, I made myself laugh and laugh and laugh …

  “Don’t you hear me knocking?” My aunt’s voice sliced through the sound of the showering water.

  “Yeah Aunt B?”

  “Somebody’s here to see you.”

  I grabbed back the shower curtain saying, “Oh Aunt B I forgot to tell you, I mean I forgot to ask you, if Natalie comes by or calls, just tell her that I left already.”

  “Why?” she asked suspiciously. “I thought that was your girl?”

  “No she is … I just don’t feel like being bothered with her today ’cause I got a lot on my mind.”

  “Oh,” Aunt B said, “you must be thinking about that stretch limo you was riding around in Saturday night or maybe you’re thinking about Natalie’s man. What’s his name again? Bianca!” my aunt yelled to her daughter. “What’s Natalie’s boyfriend’s name?”

  Bianca didn’t answer.

  I stood there speechless and naked and getting cold as the air blew in and the steam moved out of the open door.

  My aunt stepped out of the doorway. “I ain’t that damn old. I know what goes on around here, especially in my own house.”

  “Aunt B,” I said, “who’s at the door?”

  She stuck her head back in and said, “You’ll see, get dressed.”

  Patting myself dry, I dashed to the bedroom. Bianca was up and out of her bed. I thought damn, where did she go that quick? I went in my suitcase, pulled out my jeans and a shirt. As I reached for the bra I had laying on top of my suitcase under the folded dress I took off last night, I immediately saw that my safety pin was not there. I ran my hand along the lining of the bra. The pins were gone. My twenty-five hundred dollars was gone. A sense of emergency overcame my body. Don’t panic, I mumbled to myself. I unfolded my dress, shook it out to see if my money had somehow gotten tangled up in there. Nothing. I picked up my panty hose, shook ’em. I threw open the top of my suitcase and started running my hand along the side pockets, searching for the cash. I looked in places I knew I had never and would never have put the money. Sweat broke out on my forehead, mixing with water beads from the shower.

  Aunt B stuck her head into the bedroom door, shook her head with disapproval, and said, “What a mess. Please don’t keep company waiting.” She cleared her throat. “Are you looking for something?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, then immediately closed it. “Nah.” She walked away. I got it, I caught it. She had been in my things. My aunt had stolen my money. She thought it was even steven because she didn’t have no money and she figured I got more money where this comes from, ’cause I must be holding out on her. This bitch took my life savings. I screamed out loud, no words, just sounds. I stood butt naked in anguish.

  My aunt came back to the bedroom door with her hands on her hips, followed by an older white woman. She was peering into the bedroom at me like she was trying to see as much as she could as quickly as she could. My aunt turned to her and said, “Good luck with her. She’s a mess, she don’t want to listen to nobody. She always want it her way. And she’s a nonstop liar. Winter, this is Ms. Griswaldi. She’s from BCW.”

  “Nice to meet you, Winter. We’ve been looking all over for you. I’m just glad I got the call about your new address this morning. Come, get dressed. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  Ms. Griswaldi leaned toward me. “I’m sorry this is the way you feel, Winter. In fact, I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you up until this point. For now and for the next 330 days, you are officially a ward of the state. We are your legal guardians. Please come along with us. The marshal will escort us.” I glanced down the hall and saw a man in a uniform.

  “Wait a minute, hold on. Aunt B, can I talk to you for a second?” Aunt B looked at Ms. Griswaldi as though she all of a sudden needed permission from her to have a conversation in her own apartment. Ms. Griswaldi looked at her watch and said, “You have five minutes. We’re on a tight schedule. You’re not the only pickup we have to do this afternoon. Please pack all the belongings that you plan to bring along with you.”

  I grabbed Aunt B’s hand, said excuse me a minute, and closed the door. “Come on Aunt B, we family. Did you actually turn me in? Did you call the fucking authorities on me? Is shit that bad? Damn, I would have gave you some goddamn money.” Tears of anger filled my eyes.

  “Don’t be stupid, Winter. You think I’ma call some authorities into my crib. That nosy lady been snooping all around my house. You think I want some more police, and heat in my place. You’re just a dumb ass, Winter. You don’t run shit around here. You better check yourself. That stupid bitch Natalie probably called the authorities on you. Now this white lady know all our business. She know I got too many people living in this apartment to be on Section 8. She know Alvin’s locked up. She know your mother’s on drugs. She’s looking at my arms checking for tracks. She’s staring in my face like I’m supposed to confess to some shit. I just want her to get the fuck outta here before she start writing my ass up. So pack your shit up n’go. To be so damn smart, you sure are stupid. I don’t need no trouble.”

  “What about my money, though? That’s all the money I have to my name.”

  My aunt looked me dead in the eye and said, “What money?” She stuck her two hands in her pants pockets pulling the pockets inside out. There was nothing in those pockets but lint. “I don’t have any money. And as far as I know, you didn’t have any money either.”

  Aunt B gave me the evil sarcastic I-told-you-so grin. My mind snapped. All I know is I had my two hands around her neck choking her. She was gagging for air. I wasn’t going for her no-money-in-my-pockets act. I ripped off her shirt. She fought back, but she couldn’t fight me—well she could, but she wouldn’t win. I snatched her bra off. The money wasn’t hidden there. Ms. Griswaldi and the marshal entered the room. The marshal restrained me. Ms. Griswaldi picked Aunt B up off the floor and tried to help her reassemble herself.

  My aunt stepped back from Ms. Griswaldi’s assistance. With only her pants left on her body and a busted lip, she snatched a big piece of her shirt off of the floor to cover her titties. “You see,” she said to Ms. Griswaldi, breathing in and out real hard, “Winter is violent and spoiled. You’ll need to lock her ass up. She can’t
be trusted. All I can say is, I opened my place to her and she turned on me. She’ll turn on you, too.”

  I understood how she was tryna set me up. I just mumbled, “You junky bitch,” and packed up my shit to go.

  10

  The House of Success was a group home for teenage girls aged thirteen to eighteen. Don’t ask me how or why they picked that name. As far as I was concerned it was a joke like everything else. This building was set up like a house. Somehow somebody thought they would take a whole bunch of anonymous females, put ’em in a building set up like a house and have them pretend they was like family. There were four girls in each big room. There were about ten big rooms. There were two kitchens and one big-ass living room that doubled as the recreation room. There were offices where the people in charge did whatever they were pretending to do. Across from the offices were a set of small rooms that some counselors and personnel slept in when they did the overnight shift.

  This was minimum security where a girl had to follow certain rules and would somehow be rewarded with “little freedoms.” As Ms. Griswaldi put it, “For the next thirty days you will be evaluated. If you are not deemed to be violent or suffering from a learning disorder or illness you will be treated like a young adult with adult responsibilities.” So the deal was I had to be on lockup, meaning I couldn’t leave, or come and go as I please. I had to stay within the facility for thirty days while they decided if I was ready for the world.

  I wasn’t scared. Santiaga raised me to be strong. I’ll admit I had all those fucked-up scenes in my head from the movies like some squad of butch women dragging me out of my bed, fucking me up in the bathroom, and shoving a broomstick up my pussy. But I would fight anybody I had to before I would let them get me down. They’d have to kill me before I’d let some chicks eat my pussy or make me lick theirs. All that shit was dead.

  The House of Success wasn’t like the movies, though. In the room I was assigned to, I met all kinds. First, there was this girl from Haiti. The only thing I could say about her was that she was the greasiest person I ever saw. She had a dogged-out, uneven, jheri curl with all the grease activator and gel that comes with it. She had the jheri curl grease colliding with the Vaseline on her face. She had greasy lotions for her hands and feet, and in general always looked wet. Her name was Claudette. There was no worse nightmare than the clothes she wore. It looked like she picked a year from the past, let’s say 1975, and decided all her clothes would be from that time. To make it worse, she just said fuck the color scheme. I’ll wear a purple shirt with green gauchos with a yellow hat with a big pink flower on it and I’ll top this shit off with some wooden platform open-toed shoes so I can show off my big maroon bunion. Needless to say, Claudette mostly stayed to herself. The only time I seen her chilling with the other girls in the house was when they chipped in and bought her a cheap Walkman for her birthday. She was ridiculously happy. They claimed the only reason they bought it was because Claudette played some old fucked up Christian radio station with gospel music and a loud whacky screaming preacher on the AM dial. They couldn’t take hearing it no more so they got her the radio with the headphones.